Monday, November 06, 2006

282. Dick

I came back to Gotham four months ago thinking ... I don't know, thinking it would be easier this time, maybe? Thinking everything would be different, that Green Arrow and I would join Batman and his new partner, and together the four of us would take down the mysterious HateMonger's organization and restore order not just to this own city, but to the entire nation, since the group's ideology of hate and fear has spread like a weed throughout one community after another with alarming speed.

Instead, life has been an annoying mix of sheer chaos and utter tedium. I spend far more of it as Dick Grayson than Robin (in fact, I've barely suited up at all since Ollie and I rescued the other two back in June). Instead of investigating crime cartels, I've been scouring the paper for apartments, since it's become quite clear that Wayne Manor is not a healthy place to live these days. Oliver's been doing temp work, and I went crawling back to my old employer offering to accept a huge pay cut if they'd only take me back. (B offered to pay me for Wayne Foundation work as he had before I left town, but it just felt wrong on so many levels I can't even count them all.)

I thought I had left my previous existence forever, but I'm finding out that's not quite the case. In some ways it feels like decades have passed since I left here, but in other ways it seems like I never left. Speaking of which, I ran into Janice on the street a few days ago, after not talking to her for at least a year and a half. Awwwwwwwwwkwaaaaaaard. She pretty much insisted that we get together and compare notes over beer and pizza as soon as possible, and there was no way I could back out of it. She used to be my closest confidant in the world, and now we don't even know each other's phone numbers. I have no idea where to start, since about eighty percent of my activities since we last spoke has been completely off the record. I can't talk about Bruce, probably shouldn't talk about Ollie, have no idea what to say about anything else. "Oh, and remember that shrink I was seeing for a while? Turns out he was an evil mad scientist who brainwashed me and briefly turned me into an archcriminal intent on capturing and caging Batman, who is not an urban legend but a real person and my ex-boyfriend. So, what's new with you?"

Meanwhile, HateMonger is out there amassing an army of untold proportions, and I'm itching to suit up and take him down, but I can't do it alone, and it's painfully clear there's no critical mass of good guys to back me up at the moment.